I can honestly say that I haven’t been outright entertained by a Bisping fight since he fought Wanderlei back at UFC 110, so perhaps he is the correct source to consult when determining whether a fight was boring or not. Luckily for us, Michael could only fit so much dickishness into his schedule each day, so he went and started a blog to make sure we could all be privy to this exact kind of information. In his most recent post, he took aim at Tim Boetsch and Alan Belcher, two fellow middleweights who came up short in somewhat disastrous performances at UFC 155.

We’ve collected all the best snippets, along with our running commentary in bold, after the jump. So join us as we honor (that’s code for “Spill Haterade on”) the nastiest hater since Silky Johnson, won’t you?

With a somewhat forgettable year thankfully coming to an end, UFC 155 looked to excite fans, promote contenders and get everybody ready for a new year. This card did exactly that. Not to reach into our bag of clichés so early into the aftermath, but UFC 155 really sent 2012 out with a bang, and set the bar high for upcoming cards in 2013.

With as many solid fights as took place Saturday in Las Vegas at UFC 155, Jim Miller and Joe Lauzon’s three round battle was recognized by the UFC brass as the Fight of The Night and each man earned an extra $65,000 for their effort. The lightweight contenders should also be in consideration for Fight of The Year lists everywhere.

If it is, Lauzon will be competing with himself for his incredible fight last August against Jamie Varner. JLau may have lost the decision against Miller on the judge’s score cards, two rounds to one, but deserves credit for coming back from being bullied, beaten and bloodied badly in the first round by Miller in the first round and finishing stronger in the final two rounds.

On the strength of his aggressiveness and multiple submission attempts to close out the second and third rounds, this writer believes that a very reasonable judge could have scored the bout Lauzon’s way instead of Miller’s. As it stands, both men were impressive in their own ways and, *reaches back into the bag of applicable clichés* there simply were no “losers” in this one.

Miller has always shown excellent boxing skills but he may have been sharper than ever before against Lauzon in the first and second rounds, scoring almost at will with shots to the body and head, as well as knocking Joe down repeatedly with a nasty inside leg kick. His dirty boxing from the clinch was masterful, using punches, knees and elbows to hurt and cut open Lauzon over and again.

UFC 155 might not be as epic as some of the UFC’s previous end-of-year cards (you can blame the injury curse for that), but any time the Heavyweight Championship of the World is at stake, it’s must-see TV.

Running our final liveblog of the year (!) will be none other than Elias Cepeda, who will be updating you with round-by-round results after the jump starting at 10 p.m. ET / 7 p.m. PT. Refresh the page every few minutes for all the latest, and please share your New Year’s resolutions in the comments section.

(If you ever needed a sign that Photoshop is out of control in this country, look no further than the Koopa Troopas facing off in this photo.)

By Dan “Get Off Me” George

This Saturday night, Zuffa will close out 2012 with a rematch between former UFC champion Cain Velasquez and current heavyweight champion Junior Dos Santos. It has since been revealed that both fighters were injured heading into their original matchup (cue the guy who says “all fighters fight with injuries”), so there are a lot of extraneous factors heading into the rematch that you should seriously consider before placing your bets.

With a 3-4 record over the past 7 UFC shows, the GAE has slipped into the red for the first time since UFC 148 (thanks in no small part to that God damned injury curse) and we need a boost to avoid dining on Newfoundland steak and mashed potatoes in 2013. UFC on Fox 5 was a particularly cruel mistress, and like a Diaz brother taking a realtor’s exam, the result was a miserable failure. So follow us after the jump as we keep it short and sweet in the hopes of turning a profit for UFC 155: Dos Santos vs. Velasquez 2.

Leonard Garcia will be looking to avoid his fourth consecutive loss against a young up-and-comer out of Hawaii in Max Holloway. Holloway will enjoy a 12yr advantage in the father time category and I believe Garcia gives him the stand up fight he wants on Saturday night. Holloway will be too fast and this may very well look like a Cerrone/Garcia barnyard sparring session, with Holloway playing the role of “The Cowboy.” Max makes the parlay list and wins in an exciting affair as “Bad Boy” tries to find the mark with those crazy hands of his while Holloway picks him apart from the outside.

Not that it matters to Anderson Silva, but UFC 155 was supposed to set the stage for a fight that would more or less* determine the next top contender of the middleweight division when Chris Weidman and Tim Boetsch squared off. But as things are wont to do in 2012, it has just been announced that Weidman has suffered an undisclosed injury and has been forced to pull out from his scheduled fight at UFC 155. Newsday was the first to break the news:

Chris Weidman, one of the top UFC middleweight fighters, is out of UFC 155 next month with a shoulder injury, Newsday has learned.

We suppose its possible that Weidman’s elbow surgery is unrelated to sticking it to Munoz. MMA Fighting has the report. “[Weidman] underwent surgery at the Sanford Surgical Tower on his left elbow to clean out bone chips that had developed over time.”

According to the report, Weidman had been dealing with elbow issues for over two years.

(Stare at the space directly between them, and slowly move toward your screen. If you do it correctly, you will eventually see the face of Phil Baroni.)

Now that Anderson Silva is “vacationing” until a big fight comes along, Chris Weidman‘s hard-earned #1 middleweight contender spot means jack shit. That’s reality, and there’s nothing Chris can do but exist within it, you know? And so, the undefeated Serra-Longo product will return to the Octagon against another contender, with the hope that he doesn’t get bumped down the ladder.

“What’s that screeching noise? Sounds like a train coming to a sudden halt…”

Remember when we all thought that Hector Lombard was the X factor of the UFC middleweight division? And we pegged the middleweight who hadn’t lost a fight since 2006 a 4-1 favorite to wallop Tim Boetsch at UFC 149? And we thought he would go on to give Anderson Silva his toughest test to date? Oh man, those were some good times, right?

As far as Hector Lombard is concerned, not so fast. Three weeks after his dreadful performance at UFC 149, the Cuban middleweight has released a statement on his Facebook page. Presumably after meeting with his social media consultant, Tito Ortiz, Lombard claims that he was just too damn injured to have been fighting, bro. I know, put on your shocked faces.

With the middleweight division being such a gigantic question mark, it may make sense to just ask someone in Anderson Silva’s camp who they’d like to see him fight next. There’s just one small problem: Anderson Silva’s camp are, how should I say this, pricks. Case in point, here’s what Silva’s manager Jorge Guimaraes said about the possibility of Anderson fighting Chris Weidman, Tim Boetsch and Alan Belcher, who have all recently called out “The Spider” (via Tatame):